


Way To Fall

by uumuu



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Curufin isn't necessarily as good intentioned as he claims to be, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Torture, That should be obvious
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-28
Updated: 2015-04-28
Packaged: 2018-03-25 16:53:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3817861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uumuu/pseuds/uumuu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An alternative take on Nargothrond.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Way To Fall

Curufin stood with his hands clasped behind his back, waiting patiently for the right moment to speak. The thumb of his right hand traced the contour of the ring he wore on his little finger, one of the last keepsakes of his father he had left. His single braid was strewn across his chest in a semicircle, hanging over his right shoulder and thrown back over the left, at the perfect angle to frame the eight-pointed star glinting on his collar. 

“Your anger is understandable, yet...Lúthien is the daughter of a Maia,” he began, as soon as the clamour died down. He spoke calmly, clearly enunciating every word, seemingly heedless of the resentful glares directed at him and his brother by the people of Nargothrond, as many of them as possible crammed in the throne room. The prisoners returned from Tol-in-Gaurhoth stood right before Orodreth, and had captured everybody's attention, stirring outrage to the point that Celegorm had been forced to step back. Curufin would not be daunted. “My brothers and I were not lucky enough to be endued with divine powers upon birth. Yet we defended the northern borders on our own, without help from Doriath, and you too benefited from it. Tell me, where was Lúthien when Tol Sirion was first attacked?”

One of the former prisoners attempted to fling himself at him, and the guards struggled to hold him back, themselves eager to do the same. “Lúthien had no reason to be there!”

“Indeed. What should she care of the fate of her father's kingdom, and of the people in it,” Curufin softly jeered, the left corner of his lips pulling up in a wry smirk. “My brother and I crossed Nan Dungortheb, pursued by orcs, attacked on all sides by fulsome beasts, through darkness and terror, to save what we could of our people,” Curufin turned towards them, seeking to meet their gazes. Some looked away, filled with doubt, conflicted between their old loyalty and the current indignation. Some stared back, revealing no emotion. “The Iathrim watched us die from the safety of the girdle. What was Lúthien doing then? Why isn't she marching on Angband now to release all the thralls tortured there if she is so brave, and so compassionate?”

Gwindor, standing behind the throne as if in a daze, lowered his head at those words, to stare wide-eyed at the polished stone floor. He convulsively clutched the fabric of his tunic, thinking of his brother. He had no love for Curufin, but he had to agree with him – no sort of help had ever come from Doriath, and if Lúthien had truly cared about the fate of those imprisoned by Morgoth and his minions, she would have intervened sooner. Gelmir had not returned from Tol-in-Gaurhoth. A luckier captive had told him that he had been taken to Angband, soon after the island had been seized by Sauron. He closed his eyes for a moment. The mere thought made him feel like throwing up.

“Lúthien has not put her powers to use to save you. Her sole objective was to save the man she loves. Your deliverance is merely a byproduct of that. You do not signify to her.”

“And we do to you?” someone asked. “You, who burnt the ships and forsook us in Araman?”

“We made mistakes, and we paid for them,” Curufin responded, letting his face display a not entirely feigned rue. “We are trying to make up for them, too.”

“Really,” Orodreth taunted. “If Lúthien is selfish, as you imply, for attempting to fulfil her wish to get married, aren't you guilty of the same? You seek to reclaim your father's gems, you would lead us to our death for that.” 

“Yes, our goal is the recovery of the Silmarils,” Curufin avowed. “We never made a mystery of it. But it is inextricably tied with another: destroy Morgoth. And we will do it, to avenge our father, and for ourselves...and for the good of you all,” he declared, then paused, shrewdly calculating his next words to sting, and to provoke. “Finrod himself had not been doing much to rescue the prisoners from Tol-in-Gauroth, had he? And you yourselves told us he only acted when the man was targeted, while he let his other companions die one by one, noble Edrahil first among them.”

Orodreth went livid, and started to tremble with anger, holding on to the throne's armrests. He sat on the throne, but he could have been back on the Ice. A misstep, and he would slip. He couldn't even have been sitting there if Finrod hadn't died. He shouldn't have been. “How dare you speak ill of someone who is dead! How dare you lay the blame for your own misdeeds on my uncle!” 

“Finrod was our king, our rightful king, we owed him allegiance.” 

“If we hadn't been corrupted by your words -”

Curufin walked up to the man before he could finish. “What? Look at me in the eye and tell me: would you really have sacrificed yourself for the sake of a human's infatuation?” 

The man opened his mouth, but no sound came out of it. His face twisted in shame and remorse. Finrod's death lay heavy on his conscience as on everybody else's, it hung over the whole hall like a shroud, and it was easy to shift guilt on someone already marked out as culpable. 

Curufin spun around and his fiery gaze swept over the throne room. “Would you? Findaráto was bound by his own oath, and he put it before your safety and before your best interests. But now my brother and I should be held responsible because we seconded your rightful wish not to follow him on a meaningless quest? Do tell me.”

There were some vehement denials, renewed accusations. Celegorm regained his place beside his brother. Celebrimbor fidgeted in the shade of a column, next to his mother, who hadn't batted an eyelid ever since the council had begun, unmindful of the hostility. Curufin prepared to speak again, but Gwindor came forward, walking on unsteady legs, and addressed the crowd before he could.

“We are wasting our time. The only circumstance in which we should concern ourselves with Lúthien is if she decides to help us,” he said, his voice laced with anguish, torn as he was between hoping that Gelmir was still alive – even if it meant he'd be surely subjected to unspeakable savagery – and hoping that he had escaped his plight through death. “We should be thinking of finding a way to put an end to Morgoth and his torments. That is what Finrod should have been doing, too. Let the half-maia and the mortal to their love quest. If they don't intend to do more than that, they mustn't signify to us.”

Curufin unclasped his hands, and held them open before him in a conciliatory gesture. Gwindor had said what he had hoped he would say, and he promptly seized the opening the words provided him with. He knew well to strike on the iron while it was still hot. 

“Yes, exactly. We cannot afford to be distracted from our true objective. Unity is the key in the struggle against Morgoth. That Doriath refuses to join the common struggle is grievous as it is, Thingol's demands only foster division, and his daughter is no different.” There were some murmurs, but no more cries of outrage. He surveyed the room again. He was satisfied to see the old rancour against Thingol, and his abandonment of those who lived out of the girdle, flare anew on the faces of all the Sindar that had stayed with them, men and women who would have been forced to abandon their Ñoldorin spouses and children to be accepted into Doriath, when the flight from Himlad and other northern realms had begun. “We can prevail even without their help. But we have to be focused. We will strengthen this realm, to be ready to defend ourselves, if need be, and – as I hope – to attack.”

“In what capacity do you intend to do that?” Orodreth asked, narrowing his eyes.

Curufin didn't spare a glance for him, and kept on looking at the audience instead.

“If you judge me and my brother to be somehow culpable for Finrod's death, we will abide by your decision, whatever it may be. Otherwise I, my brother and my son, will strive to do our best by you.”

“You were after the throne from the start.” 

“Yet _you_ are sitting on it, Orodreth, and are to rule over our fate,” Curufin argued back, finally meeting Orodreth's gaze, and gave a graceful bow.

***

Immediately after the council broke, though without reaching a clear resolution, Curufin hastily jotted down two letters, and dispatched them as speedily. One was addressed to Fingon, and urged him to prove that he was worthy of the high kingship Maedhros had put into his hands by bringing the people of Nargothrond firmly under his rule rather than let them succumb to Doriath's influence, and thus further weaken his position. The other was addressed to Thingol, and informed him that his daughter was most likely going to head to Angband, after almost dying in a temerarious struggle on behalf of the mortal she loved.

Thingol's emissaries intercepted Lúthien and Beren in the vicinity of Tol Sirion. They had planned to return to Nargothrond, but the party from Doriath, issuing from Brethil, came upon them as they headed south from the island. In the ensuing squabble, Beren was killed by an arrow fired by one of Thingol's closest advisors. Lúthien's grief was unquenchable, and she followed him in death, and disappeared from Arda forever. 

The news of her death plunged her father into wrathful despair, and he sent messages to Fingon, Maedhros and Orodreth, to vent his grievances against Celegorm and Curufin, and stating that he held the people of Nargothrond and the Ñoldor as a whole responsible for his daughter's demise, for failing to protect her. 

Maedhros never answered: he was busy fighting orcs all over the north, and by the time he read Thingol's missive, matters had already been settled by Fingon, who sent the King of Doriath a long articulated reply. He wrote that he had no proof his cousins had harmed Lúthien in any way, and that whatever the circumstances of her sojourn in Nargothrond, it surely didn't compare to what his own sister had been put through by the man who had kept her segregated for nearly a century, and then killed her; reminded him of the many appeals issued by his father to investigate into her disappearance, all unanswered; clarified that the Ñoldor had much more pressing matters to attend to than to second Doriath's bizarre wedding traditions; concluded that Lúthien had died because of the actions of Thingol's own subordinates, and that he failed to see how any of his people should be held accountable for that. 

Thingol's wrath remained unabated, but turned to his own. Saeros was quick to flee Doriath before he could be brought in the King's presence, hastening south towards his father's native land of Ossiriand under the watchful eye of Amrod and Amras's sentries in the fortress atop Amon Ereb. They had been informed of all that happened by their brothers, and took great care to keep track of what was afoot in Doriath and the surrounding regions. Thingol sent a party after his former counsellor, with orders to arrest him. According to the reports of the Green Elves who had entered into a mutual defence alliance with the Fëanorians, Saeros's father, Ithilbor, killed Thingol's guards as they attempted to lay their hands on his son, and the two then went into hiding in one of the remotest areas of the woods. 

Fingon sent trusted retainers to rule over Nargothrond, and with the help of its people, re-established a garrison on Tol Sirion. There he met Maedhros, coming from the East after he had finished recapturing Dorthonion, and cleansing it of orc presence.

Maedhros recalled Celegorm and Curufin and their people east, to help strengthen the northern passes again.

***

“Gift of the silver tongue,” Celegorm gushed, smiling at his little brother as they climbed the hilly ground leading to the mountain peak where Himring stood. Nargothrond was firmly behind them now, one more adversity they had weathered.

“It's what distinguishes a good leader,” Mineth concurred.

 _'And a liar',_ Celebrimbor thought, eyes fixed on his father's back.

Curufin slowed his horse down until he was riding next to Celebrimbor's. Celebrimbor pulled his hood further down, ostensibly to protect his face from the incessant drizzle that had begun to soak through their clothing. He wished his father hadn't been so perceptive. The silence between them was uncomfortable enough to prompt him to speak.

“I do not approve of what you did.”

“I know. But you are naive if you think we can win this fight by always being truthful, or without sacrifices.”

Celebrimbor scowled. It was rare for him to get truly angry, but his father was able to stir all manner of stormy emotions in him. “And we can like this?” he asked, sounding nothing short of spiteful.

“...probably not,” Curufin admitted, “but it allows us to go down on our own terms, if that's all we can hope to achieve.”

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this months ago, and wanted it to be a longer AU, but aside from the fact that I can't handle one more long story right now, I don't think I could ever write Thingol et al. in any decent way.
> 
> It's canon that Saeros hated Beren (as per Unfinished Tales), and knowing Saeros, he wouldn't have missed a chance to kill him. 
> 
> The bit about Fingolfin asking Thingol's help to look for Aredhel is my headcanon, because I can't believe that Fingolfin didn't do anything after (if) he knew his daughter went missing. Considering that Doriath's marchwardens turned Aredhel away for being a friend of the Fëanorians, I assume Thingol wouldn't have cared much for her fate. In any case, Fingon would have had plenty of reasons to be bitter by this point.
> 
> The 'gift of the silver tongue' bit is based off Ocelot's quote in MGS2: "Gift of the silver tongue, they say it's mark of a good officer...and of a liar".


End file.
